Three More Things You Can Do Right Now with Google Apps for Education

There are three things you can do right now using Google Apps for Education that will make your lives much easier and enhance your lessons. 1. Check the revision history on any Google Doc, Spreadsheet or Presentation that has been shared with you, 2. Work offline on your Google Docs and, 3. Understand how to create a teacher content folder viewable only to students, and how students can create a turn in folder that is editable by you the teacher. Below are some quick tips and video tutorials to help you get started.

1. Check Revision HistoryChecking the revision history on a Google Doc, Spreadsheet or Presentation can be very helpful in understanding the planning, collaboration, drafting and editing process of your students. Kids can no longer hide from text that they have entered in a Google work space. As a teacher, you can check the revision history of any shared Google Drive file. Once in the document, simply click on File -> See Revision History. This short video will walk you through the steps.

2. Work Offline with Google DocsGoogle Apps for Education is wonderful because it truly is accessible from any device that has an Internet connection, but what happens when you really need to work on something and you don't have an Internet connection? Thankfully you can work offline with Google Drive. This way anything that you change, edit, add, or create will be automatically synced with your Google Drive folder the next time your device is connected to the Internet. (Keep in mind that offline access is available only when you’re using Google Chrome.)

Follow these Simple Steps to Setup Offline Access

From drive.google.com in your Chrome browser, click More on the left-hand side of the screen.

Select Offline.

Setting up offline access is a two-step process. First, click the blue button that says Get the app. If you already have the app installed, you won't need to complete this step.

If you have not installed the Drive Chrome Web App, follow these directions...

You'll be taken to the Chrome web store. Click Add to Chrome in the upper-right corner of the browser window.

Once the app is installed, you'll be taken to a Chrome page with the Google Drive app icon. To return to Drive, click the Google Drive icon.

On the right side of the dialog on the Offline Docs page, click the blue button that says Enable Offline. At this point, it also works to click on the gear icon in the top-right corner of your main Drive view and select Enable Offline to set up offline access.

3. Creating a Shared Folder for Course Content Viewable by Students vs. Creating a Shared Folder for Turning in Content Editable by You

This sounds complicated, but it really is not. We want to make this process as simple as possible. Let's take this one and break it up into two parts; A. Creating a Course Work/Materials Folder and B. Creating a Turn It In Folder for Students.

A. As a teacher, you would like to create a folder with all of your slideshows, labs, writing prompts, syllabi, templates etc. These files are to be viewed only by your students and should not be edited by them. What's the easiest way to upload these materials to one common place using Google Apps for Education? Creating a quick Google File Cabinet "Site" is a great way to share public folders and materials with your students. The short video tutorial below shares the steps necessary to complete this task.

B. Creating a Turn In Folder for your students is a great way to organize assignments and streamline the pass it in process for both you and your students. The best way to accomplish this requires a quick folder setup.

1. First as a teacher, you will want to create a folder for each of your classes, blocks or periods in My Drive online.

2. Next you will want to have each of your students create a folder in their Drive account named appropriately for the class they are taking (i.e. Math Block 2). Once the students have created this folder, they will want to share it with you the teacher. The short video tutorial below will walk your students through these quick steps.

Once the students start to share their folders with you, the assignment folders will start to appear in Google Drive under "Shared with Me". To keep things organized, you will want to select all of the students from a class (i.e. Block 1) and move them to a folder that you have created in My Drive. Elementary teachers may want to create a separate folder for each of the curriculum content areas instead. This way when you assign a project, paper or piece of homework to all of your students in a class, you will see the individual student folders inside of your class folder bold when a new assignment has been shared with you or edited since you last took a look at it.

This makes it really easy for students to create content within Google Drive as well as with other apps, and drag the file (or upload the file) to the shared folder with you to submit their work. As a teacher, you can then comment on the work and the students receive immediate feedback. This is all done without printing out a single piece of paper as well!

New Google Links for Teachers

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